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S1-E70 : Left Back, The History of a troubled position.
16 Plays24 days ago
It's Tactics Tuesday here on the Daily Arsenal Podcast, and this week, Josh takes us through the history of a position that he has seen as a problem for many years at Arsenal, the Left Back, and whether finally we have found a solution!
Host : Josh Vince
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Transcript
Introduction & Arsenal's Left-back Woes
00:00:09
Global Sports Podcast Network
Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to this daily edition of the bun Daily Arsenal Podcast brought to you as part of the Global Sports Podcast Network. It is Tuesday and today you are listening to me on my own. My name is Josh Vince, and we're gonna take a Tactics Tuesday look at something that I've always considered one of Arsenal's big problems as a team, especially sort of since since around about 2006 has been an issue for us as a team, and I think a lot of fans would agree.
Historical Left-back Challenges at Arsenal
00:00:44
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It is our problem position that we're gonna be focusing on today, which is left back.
00:00:50
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Now, over the years, we've had solid players in every position from goalkeeper. Well, the goalkeeper situation got a little bit shaky in the mid 2000s. Admittedly, Manuel Amunia, not the strongest option there ever, but then we, you know, improve things with Leno and then Ramsdale, and now of course David Ryer, the absolute hero that is him. And then you've got the centre back pairings, which again, they've gone through permutations, that's been good, that's been bad, you know, the the likes of Permetisack, who actually rated quite highly. ah You had Kachelny, it was pretty decent at times, but then you've also got the Sendroses.
00:01:25
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yeah You know, you've got the Shkod Duran Mustafis of the world. Miff Field, we've always been pretty solid and offensively as well. We won't talk about Marouane Shamak, Yaya Sanogo and Nicholas Bentler in this podcast. no We're going to focus on that position that I mentioned earlier, which has been tricky for us ever since we had arguably the best player who's ever played in that position in England, I would go as far as
Ashley Cole's Legacy and Departure
00:01:54
Global Sports Podcast Network
saying. And again, it all comes back to left back. Now, when we look back at, I sort of did a little bit of digging, just a little bit of research with the limited, it really limited stats in some occasions when we go back basically before 2017, we've had three, four, we've had about eight, eight or nine,
00:02:17
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big left backs who have played from us in this millennium since the year 2000, since Y2K didn't wipe us all out. And I think the reason that left back has been a problem is because we were so blessed in the early years from 1999 to 2006, we were blessed with the one and only Ashley Cole. Now, Ashley Cole is a hard player to talk about from an arsenal perspective, because I think it's incredibly hard to deny that he is probably the best left-back the Premier League has ever seen. His ability on the ball, his defensive awareness as well, which is something which is somewhat lost in modern-day left-back. If I'm thinking about comparisons, especially modern comparisons, the only one who really jumps out, Andy Robertson maybe. But, you know, in terms of what they've won,
00:03:17
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relatively similar. I mean, Ashi Cole won two Premier Leagues at Arsenal. He also won three FA Cups with us. Admittedly, he did make that horrible move to Chelsea where he also won a Premier League. He won four fa cups a champion's league and a europer league but we don't we don't focus on that because we got very lucky with ashley cohen he was in that sort of mold of defensively astute rapid able to get back and cover in dangerous situations i mean he he what 228 appearances for us 31 goal contributions including 22 assists which is pretty impressive by any defensive
00:03:56
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ah
Post-Cole Left-backs: Clichy and Gibbs
00:03:57
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standpoint. Obviously not the sort of stats you'd look at nowadays for modern fallbacks because modern fallbacks have kind of, they've turned more into wingbacks more than anything like when you look at the the Trents of this age and the Roboes as we said before and even the Carl Walkers, you know.
00:04:13
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I mean, blimey, imagine peak car walker and Ashley Cole playing for your team, one on each side, like no one's getting down any of your wings. So Ashley Cole started us off so brilliantly with the Vanger years. And then we saw a bit of a a gradual decline.
00:04:30
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So what I'm going to do in this podcast, is it's going to be a slightly shorter one because it is just me. I'm going to take you through the history of the left backs that we have had in the preceding years, like the big ones that stand out from an Arsenal fans perspective. And we're going to talk about kind of in each section, we're going to talk about the style of left back that managers seem to go for, as well as the pure chaos of choices that Miquel
Andre Santos: The Unfulfilled Promise
00:04:57
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Arteta has made. But When you look at the left backs after Ashley Cole, there was two fairly solidly for quite a few years. You have the likes of Guile Clichy and Kieran Gibbs. Now, Guile Clichy was a tremendously quick on his day.
00:05:17
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very, again, very astute defender. He came through the Arsenal ranks, much as Kieran Gibbs did. um He was around at the club till 2011. So, you know, he was there for nine, was it nine? Eight years from 03 to 11, 187 appearances. In terms of the goal contributions, very low. Only made nine. However, his job was defensive. But at that time as well, Arsenal were going through their sort of invincible hump. The one that's lasted for 20 years and he was probably when I look when I look at the list of left backs that I have here until 2013 he was the best left back that Arsenal had and again made a nasty move made a really unpleasant move to Manchester City in 2011 and he won technically he won one Premier League with us because he was in the squad for 0304
00:06:13
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And then he went on and one, two with Manchester City, including their first one, which was lovely. Lovely for him. He sort of kick started them off. Kieran Gibbs is, he's a difficult play. He's with us for 10 years, 137 appearances. He was there while there were also a lot of good alternatives in that position.
00:06:36
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He was there concurrently with the likes of players that were going to have a little bit of a look at the spotlight in just a minute on Andros Santos and Nacho Monreal. But he never, again, came through the youth, never really got much of a look in in the first team. He was always more of a relief player. Like when you had the likes of Hector Bellerin shooting into the first team and nailing down the spot, Gibbs really couldn't quite match that.
00:07:01
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And so the slow deterioration of left backs continued from that sort of point of 07. I mean, he moved on to West Brom and yeah, he won three FA Cups with us, which is great. You know, it's lovely to see. I mean, honestly, the main memory I have of him is the unbelievable moment where I can't even remember which referee it was, but he mixed up Gibbs and Oxlade Chamberlain in one of the most shocking bits of refereeing I think I've ever seen.
Stability with Nacho Monreal
00:07:29
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It was, it made national headlines. It was an absolutely ludicrous decision. I think it did get amended later on. I think it did get appealed. But anyway, that's sort of like the first three. I'm going to take a quick break and when we come back, we're going to look at sort of the late Venger, early Emery years and what I think is the real, dequa but I can't talk, the real decline in quality, barring one player. So we'll be back just after this message from Zencaster.
00:08:26
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And welcome back to the Daily Arsenal Podcast. It's Tactics Tuesday, and it is just me, Josh Vince, and we're talking left backs. And sort of the history and the problem position that they that it did become, and especially in this period that we're going to look at right now. We're looking at the 2010s, basically, where left back chopped and changed between three main players. And one of those players, in fact, I think, if i if I can remember rightly, if my memory serves me well,
00:08:56
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features quite heavily in the worst Arsenal 11 of all time, narrowly missed out to one of the old ah twins, if I'm not mistaken, Andre Santos. Now, Andre Santos. I remember him coming in and there being quite a lot of fanfare about the idea that finally Arsenal have an answer to their left back woes. Finally, this is the man they've been waiting for, you know, he's he's Brazilian, he's um he very technically gifted and very strong. He didn't, we were kind of making a shift at that point in the back line. We weren't relying so much on speed necessarily for that, so like we had Bellerin, who was a pure pace merchant,
00:09:43
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and he was he was the right hand side he was first choice right hand side and we were happy with that andre santos was kind of like the strong one who could fit into the back line if need be a tough dude like really no messing about he just won the turkish league with uh fun of ashe ah the year before as well so it looked like a really good signing he lasted with us for two years he made 23 appearances and in those 23 appearances was absolutely terrible. It was just a really, really poor player, defensively unaware, just couldn't meld with the backline at all, hence the fact that in two seasons he only made 23 Premier League
Sead Kolašinac's Struggles and Success
00:10:26
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appearances. He was poor and he was very much replaced by the man who came next, who in the dark period of Arsenal's defensive woes of the 2010s, personally to me was one of the shining lights and this is a player that I always enjoyed watching and I always
00:10:44
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respected as well as an Arsenal player, because he was a player who gave everything. And that is the Spaniard Nacho Monreal. Now Monreal was at the time, especially sort of like growing, I mean, I grew up with football 2003, four onwards. If you were a fullback, you were, you know, the stereotype was you're the least gifted player technically, except for the centre backs, but you're quick, you were a rubbish winger,
00:11:13
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and you were just put back and you learned how to defend. That was kind of like the stereotype of, that was very much the stereotype of the full back. And Nacho Memorial was a bit of a change from that. He was kind of not dissimilar in profile to maybe the sort of player that Arteta would look at now, just not quite as physically big, but he was a clever and powerful player. He wasn't particularly fast but defensively minded Himakus Šelny on that left hand side of the defensive pairing.
00:11:47
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really combined relatively well for a few seasons. I mean, we are talking here in Arsenal's kind of decline. This is, well, yeah, this is the mid 2010s. We weren't doing anything particularly special except for, of course, the year 2016 when um another team decided to steal all the headlines and amaze the world of football.
00:12:14
Global Sports Podcast Network
by winning the league. Realistically, the year we should have won it when Leicester did. But Nacho Memorial was a player who was always reliable. He wasn't a world-beater. He wasn't the greatest left-back you're ever going to see and you're ever going to watch and you're ever going to enjoy. But he was a solid player and gave us a little bit of security in a position that had been problematic for us, because I think for so many years, the centre-backs were, as I said before, relatively solid.
00:12:45
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The right back position, I mean, you got like sort of Eboué and then you had um ah even, you know, Cedric Suarez was a bit of a laughing figure at this point in time in Arsenal history, which is unfair to him. He wasn't a bad player. He was literally just a filler player. But Bellerin was, I loved Bellerin. I really liked Bellerin. I didn't think, I mean, he had a rough day against United when we lost 8-0, admittedly. I can still remember.
00:13:14
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I still remember the day that happened. I was 16 years old and I was at Reading Festival and I had one friend with me who was an Arsenal fan, Sam, Mr. Tullman. And we were waiting on the main stage for somebody. And this was before the internet was really on mobile phones. It was kind of, there was vague connection, but it's not, ah nothing like, you obviously you get today. And my dad had called me and just to sort of like make sure we were still alive I'm assuming because it was our first festival as a group of lads and you know we were doing what group of lads often do and um he called me and he said oh it's not going very well against United I said oh how bad can it be how bad can it be he's like oh you're losing three nil already and it's early and I think I told him to go away in a slightly more rude tone
00:14:09
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And I hung up the phone, and about an hour and a half later while we were waiting for a main act on the main stage, somebody from BBC Radio came out and decided to do all of the all of the announcements um of all the football results. And, you know, a game against Manchester United, Old Trafford, me and Sam were excited to hear it, so we sort of held each other, we were ready for it. And the presenter goes, Arsenal 2!
00:14:36
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And, you know, two girls at Old Trafford, me and Sam, start celebrating straight away. Incredibly excited. And then, unfortunately, he had to continue talking. Arsenal, two! Manchester United, eight! And the laughter that filled the thousands of people in that field echoed, and me and Sam sort of stopped jumping for a moment and looked at each other, looked at the stage,
00:15:06
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looked at each other and just sunk into the earth. But yeah, i remember that is a very long-winded story to say. I remember Bellerin from that game. He had a bit of a had a bit of rough ride of it.
00:15:18
Global Sports Podcast Network
um The last one, but let's go back to the 2010, which is what I was talking about three minutes ago. The last ah left back to come in around this period. Again, a player who at Arsenal didn't fill his boots with great honor. He was more of an Emery signing. He's doing well now, though. He's playing and he's winning things, which is nice for him. He won an FA Cup with us. Syed Kalazanac, the Bosnian left back, who played 80 games for us.
00:15:47
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um this is when we finally get a little bit in terms of defensive statistics defensively by far the worst of the last four that we're going to touch on 54 tackling percentage which is very very poor he didn't though leave us for arrival like cliche did or ashley did earlier in the left back conundrum days i mean To be fair, none of them did. Andre Santos left us for a Flamingo. Montréal went to Real Sociedad where he won a Copa del Rey and Kalazanac went to Marseille and has since won Europa League with Atalanta last season. In fact, we came up against him earlier this year. And he I'm not sure if he didn't suit the Premier League or he didn't suit Arsenal.
00:16:31
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but he was here for a long time. He did go on loan briefly, but he was here from 17 to 22 and got 80
Transition to Arteta's Era
00:16:39
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games. So that's five seasons and 80 games. He wasn't wasn't well utilized. Again, um kind of a strong technician who didn't really have the ability and was a clear and obvious weakness at the back. This was the thing, like when you looked at Andre Santos and Kalazan in particular in this period, you'd look at left back and go, that is where teams can hurt us. That is where we are weak.
00:17:01
Global Sports Podcast Network
and it is dangerous. Nacho Montréal was a slightly safer pair of hands but in that period for me left back was our big problem position along probably with goalkeeper. But then we move on and we're going to take a little break and then we're going to come to the Michel Arteta years and the the change in fortunes on that left full back side.
Tierney and Zinchenko: A New Quality
00:17:25
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We'll be back just after this message from the Global Sports Podcast Network.
00:18:05
Global Sports Podcast Network
And welcome back to this final section of today's Tactics Tuesday. It's me, Josh Vince, talking about left backs. And we've gone through the vanger in the Emory years where, as I said before, after the after the loss of Ashley Cole, I think left back was our big problem position, just historically looking back. But then we move into the Arteta years, and there are three, really. Admittedly, we've had problems with injuries quite a lot over that period, ah over the last sort of four or five years.
00:18:34
Global Sports Podcast Network
um But these players are the ones who have staked a claim to left back. And I think you could very easily argue the jump-up in quality of player. I mean, if you look at the previous three players, the ones we mentioned earlier, Andre Santos, absolutely useless. Nacho Monreal, solid but not brilliant. Said Kalazanac, underwhelming. And then you look at the next three.
00:19:04
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Kia and Tieni, exciting young. Alexander Zinchenko, winner and technically brilliant. Ricardo Calafiori, young, exciting and defensively solid. The difference in quality with those last three to the previous three and in fact realistically the previous five like Gail Cliche was probably up when we don't include Ashley Cole, girl cliche is probably our best left back after him. And then I would argue that Kieran Tieni is much better. So Kieran Tieni's been with us was 2019. And he's probably one of the saddest stories of modern arsenal, in the sense of his constant injury problems. And the team kind of
00:19:55
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It sounds harsh to say, but the team sort of developing beyond his skill set or not beyond his skill set, but beyond his style. So he was very much, I would argue he's very much in the mold of the sort of Robertson. He's fast. He's aggressive. He gets beyond players. And technically when he goes into the opposition half, he's very, very good. Um, defensively he's not bad. He's got a 60% tackle success f rate, which is very, which is actually identical to Alexander Zinchenko for Arsenal.
00:20:25
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um He's played for us 91 times but his injury problems have just been brutal and I don't think anybody came out of the documentary, the all-or-nothing documentary with more sympathy and more general concern, I'd say, than Keir and Tyranny did.
00:20:47
Global Sports Podcast Network
And i I love the player. I think he's, he seems like a really solid guy. And apparently, I mean, I'm recording this on the 24th. So this is the, this is two days before this comes out. I think I read earlier today, it was yesterday, potentially, that he's back in full training, which is really encouraging to see. Like a lot of people thought he'd played his last game for Arsenal quite some time ago. And there's rumors that he's going to go back to Celtic way. I mean, he won four Scottish premierships and four Scottish cups.
00:21:14
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Celtic. He had an incredible career before he came to Arsenal and his body just kind of gave up on him. And then Arteta kind of went for a bit of a switch. This is where we see him probably matching the style of Pep a little bit more with the acquisition of Alexander Zinchenko. Obviously, I mean, a big fanfare was made about his acquisition alongside Gabrielle Jesus because the idea was that both winners, they can both do a job and they can both inspire Arsenal onwards. But it was also a very clear and obvious tactical change as he was looking to do the inverted left back positioning.
00:21:50
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especially with Ben White on the right hand side, more of a conventional centre back, so moving into a back three when in possession and still having a bit of pace and a bit of technical ability to get back and defend. I think we've all agreed on the podcast that Zinchenko is not the best defensively. I mean, his stats are identical to that of Kieran Tierney in terms of successful tackle percentage for his 58 games in an Arsenal shirt.
Calafiori: Hope for the Future?
00:22:14
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For a player who plays slightly higher up naturally,
00:22:19
Global Sports Podcast Network
in that more central role. His goal contribution stats are actually considerably lower than Kieran's Kieran has 11 to Zinchenko six. But then again, Kieran, you know, he's played 23 games, twenty seven no, much more than that. I can't do maths, i ignore me.
00:22:38
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Kieran has played more games and Zinchenko sits probably in a slightly deeper but and further forward than a left traditional left back role in that sort of sitting sitting slot next to where Rice now plays. um I mean his credentials are remarkable. He's won four Premier League titles, none of which with us.
00:22:56
Global Sports Podcast Network
he's won one fa cup which was not with us and he's won four efl cups which again was not with us so he's got nine sort of domestic cups and trophies under his name so when you look at the um the actual club qualifications he's by far the most qualified left back i see him more as a centre back person no not a centre back a sentiment fielder personally zinchenko i think if If Tierney had been fit while c Zinchenko was being brought in, I would rather have seen Zinchenko playing in the middle, ah honestly, alongside the likes of Pate with Keown Tierney at left back. Just to give us another option going forward on that left-hand side, because Ben White likes to bomb forward and Tierney likes to as well, so that could have given us a lot of overlapping danger.
00:23:51
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But obviously it didn't quite work out that way. He played at left back and he again seems to be one who's very much on the... He's more utilised as a sub nowadays to secure up a winning position.
00:24:02
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and I don't know about the other boys because obviously they're not here right now but whenever he's brought on as a sub to secure a winning position I get concerned about that winning position. I don't necessarily trust him and the last the last player to talk about before we wrap up today is of course Riccardo Calafiori our brand new Italian signing He's very young. is So far I think he's played seven Premier League games for us. He's scored a goal, of course, that absolute beauty against Manchester City. Technically he's got 65% tackling success rate, which of all the players that I have stats for going back to Kalazanac,
00:24:40
Global Sports Podcast Network
is the best but he's also only played seven games for Arsenal so far. What I will say about him is he again shows a change in style that Arteta is going for, going for incredibly strong and talented defenders to make a He's building a team of basketball players, as Marino said, he's building a huge team, a strong team that can't get unmuscled, but also still has some pace. And I mean, you look at the speed of California and Saliba in that back line, and they are big lads as well. They're not going to get messed about. So the big question is, have we solved our left back problem? I would be willing to say, under our tether, we've definitely moved in the right directions.
00:25:25
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We are definitely moving towards a period where the left back is no longer seen as our big weakness. However, when injuries plague us, you see that different, I mean, Timbers played there quite a bit this season as well. He's definitely more suited to the right-hand side, Timber. um I think if Calipheoria can stay fit, he could potentially be one of one of if not the best since Ashley Cole left the club.
Conclusion and Next Episode Tease
00:25:59
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I think he's got the potential to be better than Montréal and better than Cliche. I think he has that potential but he's got to stay and he's got to prove it.
00:26:10
Global Sports Podcast Network
Well, I think that'll i think they'll do it for today in terms of our little Tactics Tuesday left-back analysis. um Thank you for listening. I've been your host, Josh Vince. We'll be back tomorrow with a Wildcard Wednesday episode, which should be a really fun one. I'm going to put the boys through a tremendous amount of mental strain having to pick certain players and lose others.
00:26:33
Global Sports Podcast Network
So that should be a good that should be a good game, that one. So um thank you very much for listening. Wherever you are, ah make sure to follow and to subscribe to the Daily Arsenal Podcast, all as part of the Global Sports Podcast Network, of course. I've been your host, Josh Vince, and until to- tomorrow, with our Wild Card Wednesday, it's time to say goodbye.